


tonbuddy trials

by CkyKing, JazzRaft



Series: The Pious and the Profane [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied NyxNoct, M/M, Multi, Oracle!Noctis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-09 20:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10420947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CkyKing/pseuds/CkyKing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: A series of shorts following the Oracle's quest across Eos, with his faithful companions along for the ride (affectionately nick-named the tonbuddies~)





	1. Queen's Envoy

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/157711983702/heya-its-me-again-how-about-igoraclenoct) for [ckyking.](http://ckyking.tumblr.com/)

“I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anyone new,” Noctis sighed.

“Given the last person you put on the payroll? I think my logic is justified.”

Aranea skewered him with a glare. Nyx still insisted that his initial distrust of her very much deserved to continue well past the first meeting. Given the certainty that she was trying to assassinate _him_ by using Noctis as the poison dagger. What, with how she was teaching the Oracle those smoldering stares and flirtatious smiles, how was that _not_ an elaborate plot to destroy Nyx, body and soul?

So, yes, given _that_ , Nyx thought he had every reason to regard the newest addition to Team Oracle with suspicion… Not that the same logic could be applied to a royal envoy from the future queen that was applied to a mercenary. Nevertheless, Nyx didn’t like Ignis Scientia. And it was _not_ because he made Noctis laugh and charmed him with his stupid accent and clean demeanor and shrewd eyes and it was _not_ because Nyx was jealous. No matter _what_ Aranea’s smirk from next to Noctis might be insinuating.

They’d been expecting a representative from the Crown to arrive in Tenebrae for a few days now. He was being sent ahead to escort the Oracle to Insomnia for the peace signings between Niflheim and Lucis. Noctis was eager to meet with him, mostly because he was eager about what he represented. Peace between the two nations had been something Noctis had been dreaming of since the first day Nyx had met him. Ignis’s arrival in Tenebrae was like a holy symbol to the Oracle that all of the bloodshed was finally coming to an end.

“You can call me Noctis, it’s less of a mouthful,” he’d said after the initial introductions were out of the way, bemoaning the honorary “Lord Oracle Noctis” Ignis addressed him with.

The greatest indication of the man’s surprise at the lack of formality was a mere blink of his sharp green eyes. Maybe Nyx didn’t trust him because he couldn’t see past his pristine features. There was a dutifully constructed façade put into place that Nyx understood, but still narrowed his eyes at. It perfectly concealed the man’s intentions. Nyx didn’t like what he couldn’t see.

“Right then… Lord Noctis,” Ignis said, still hesitant to drop the honorific entirely. “The Crown sends with me its humble honor to host your attendance of the peace treaty signing.”

“The honor’s mine, I assure you. No more war’s going to make my job a hell of a lot easier.”

Noctis laughed his amiable Prince of Tenebrae laugh that he used to make strangers more comfortable in his presence. He’d been determined to make the position of Oracle a less intimidating one, one that didn’t require people treat him with any more respect than they would their own neighbors. If intimidation was something he was aiming to abolish, then he put the wrong people in charge of guarding him. With Nyx and Aranea always two steps behind him at either shoulder as silver-armored shadows, Noctis’s shy smile was far from comforting next to the warning scowls of his knights.

Not that either of them seemed to bother Ignis… which bothered Nyx.

“I was also instructed to relay a personal message from Princess Lunafreya,” he told Noctis, hardly giving his guards half a glance. “She’s excited to have you visiting Insomnia and looks forward to spending time with you during your stay. The way she tells it, Her Highness might be planning to give you a tour of the whole city.”

“Well, as much as I’m looking forward to the treaty, I might be looking forward to that even more.”

“Her Highness will be greatly pleased by your company,” Ignis said, cracking a smile across that cool exterior. “And, of course, should there be anything else you may require while within the city walls, I will be at your disposal, My Lord.”

“Man, these Lucians sure have great taste in welcome mats, huh?” Aranea murmured, elbowing Noctis’s arm and staring pointedly at Ignis.

Nyx somehow refrained from rolling his eyes. Years of developing a tolerance for Aranea’s off-hand flirtations had awarded him a specific type of self-control. That self-control did not extend to the small laugh disguised as a cough Noctis gave her in agreement. Ignis, to his credit, managed to keep his placid stare straight forward and relatively unaffected by the absence of subtlety. But, there was a faint twitch at the corners of his mouth, as if threatening to smirk.

“So, you’ll be staying with us until we depart, then?” Noctis asked.

“That I am, My Lord.”

“Biggs and Wedge can help get you settled.”

Aranea threw a sharp whistle towards the two men that had escorted Ignis to the Oracle, both of them giving matching nods and waiting for Ignis to take his leave.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Noctis,” he said, bowing to the Oracle.

“Pleasure’s ours,” Noctis said, hastening to give a small bow back to put himself on equal footing with their guest.

Ignis blinked again at the gesture before his expression softened into a genuine smile, endeared by the Oracle’s humility as so many others were. Others didn’t stay within immediate proximity to the Oracle enough for Nyx to worry about that endearment.

Which is where the present debate ensued, once Ignis was lead to the quarters he would be occupying during his stay.

“I like him,” Aranea stated.

“You like anyone Nyx doesn’t.”

“Careful, Shiner. You might know me a bit too well.”

“How do we even know this guy is really the rep from Lucis?” Nyx grumbled.

“Do you have proof that he’s not?”

Noctis lifted a brow at him, admonishing him for the accusation that Nyx knew wasn’t fair to make but, damnit, he didn’t trust that guy. No, it was _not_ because…

“He’s just jealous,” Aranea tactfully put. “He doesn’t like not being the only tall, dark, and handsome man in your life.”

Nyx’s teeth ground together so hard they could have turned into sand. Noctis glanced between Aranea’s teasing smirk and Nyx’s irate expression. He made a small hum of acknowledgement before glancing back towards where Ignis had disappeared to.

“Try not to hold it against me, Nyx,” he said, adopting some of Aranea’s horrible smile to tease him with. “One’s great, but I can’t say no to two.”

Yeah. They were definitely trying to kill him.


	2. long nights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the knights watch over their liege.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/157804976742/hello-i-am-still-so-very-much-in-love-with-every) for an anonymous request.

“He’s out.”

Aranea jerked her head back at the hotel bed without looking at Nyx. He nudged the door shut with his hip and passed her the coffee. She took it without taking her eyes off the Lestallum rooftops. Eyes on every side of her head. Freaked him out when it didn’t come in such handy on the job.

“Good kinda out, or bad kinda out?” he asked, padding over to the Oracle’s bedside.

“You’ve got two eyes that ain’t blind, dontcha?”

Nyx rolled said eyes, but had a hard time staying mad at the barb when he wished that he couldn’t see Noctis’s discomfited sleep. His brow was creased, breaths coming shallow, and his skin was hot as Nyx brushed the back of his hand against it.

Noctis just couldn’t help himself. Even though he knew he needed all of his strength to call on the Astrals, he couldn’t shirk the rest of his duties as Oracle; especially not if it meant helping himself over another. While they were trying to stay incognito as they made their way to awaken Titan, it didn’t help their low profile that the second Noctis sniffed scourge somewhere in the corner of an outpost, he threw back his hood and proceeded to cleanse the entire area.

Staving off assassins was a simple enough task for the Oracle’s knights. Keeping him safe from his own selfless sense of duty was impossible to accomplish. Something that Nyx never quite got used to, not even after ten, fifteen years on the job. Barely two years on and he didn’t expect Aranea was ever going to get used to it either.

Two years was a long time to get to know someone, but Nyx still felt like he barely knew his partner at all. She was just as new to him as she’d been the day Noctis first hired her. He was only just starting to scratch the surface _now_. A tiny, hairpin thin scratch at that. He was certain he’d be dead before he could ever make a full dent, let alone crack her open entirely.

Nevertheless, a scratch was still something. There was nothing to see out in Lestallum. Staring at the skyline just meant she didn’t have to stare at Noctis. One thing Nyx had learned about her was that everything she did had a purpose, and every purpose had a double meaning. She didn’t move her gaze from the city because she had to search for danger. That was her job. But looking for external threats also meant not looking at the internal one.

They were both great at their jobs. So great that rare and exciting was the occasion that either of them got to deal with a traditional cloak-and-dagger assassin. They’d built a wall of fear around the Oracle that deterred even the slightest _idea_ of hurting him. Nyx had always been proud of the timid glances he would get while the stuffed shirts of high society saved face with the Oracle. He’d been envious and awed when they went from timid, to downright terrified, the second Aranea occupied Noctis’s other shoulder.

The Knights’ fearsome reputation was of little aid towards the true villain that poisoned their charge.

Aranea was invested in Noct far beyond a paycheck. She could hide it behind a snort and an eye-roll all she wanted, but it had to take more than money to get a mercenary to hang around for as long as she’d been.

Nyx reluctantly left Noctis’s side, lingering on a strand of his hair a little longer than he should have. He took up position across from Aranea, following her motionless stare out into the lively night streets. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her gulp down her coffee like she was knocking back a shot.

It took him a while to identify her tells, especially when every infinitesimal gesture exuded such a casual carelessness so as to give any importance to any of them the perfect camouflage. Certain circumstances, accompanied by close proximity, had revealed a pattern to Nyx though.

In times of tension, Aranea got quiet. In the beginning, he hadn’t even noticed because he was too distracted by his own stress and the internal scream of his own voice to notice that hers was absent. She’d turn her back to the situation, too. She’d always be nearby, but she’d always be looking elsewhere. As if by looking at the problem, she was denying herself the search for a solution. And her movements got shorter, more aggressive and withdrawn to herself. Aranea walked with the venomous intention of an arachne in the dark, every step long and purposeful. Once she was worried, the click of her heels grew clipped.

“What,” she bit out at him from the corner of her mouth.

He hadn’t needed to stare or say anything. Just sharing a space that was within ten feet of her meant something had to be wrong. Enough to force her to acknowledge his existence.

“Coffee alright?” he asked. Because what the hell else could he say.

She grunted, tonelessly, before taking another gulp. “Be better with a shot of whiskey,” she grumbled.

Nyx scraped a glance over her, noting every muscle and joint that was locked up from their usually languid rest. And just how cold her glare was as she kept it fixed on the town below the balcony, as if it was the laughter of the night life that was to blame for her woes. Nyx cleared his throat and swallowed the scorn for her he’d been harboring for years.

“Why don’t you go get a drink? No reason both of us should be working the graveyard shift.”

“Tryna convince me to get drunk, Ulric? That’s awfully sleazy of you.”

His jaw stiffened, but he kept the retort shut behind his clenched teeth. It was a defense mechanism. He was slowly starting to learn that about her. He couldn’t fault her for it. They were both angry. Angrier every day that the Disc loomed nearer and the promise of the toll it would take on the Oracle came with it. And they had nowhere to direct that anger. The scourge wasn’t a person they could punch and kick and slash at until it ran away screaming and never thought twice about so much as breathing on Noctis again. They could be mad at the Astrals all they damn well pleased, but they couldn’t touch any of them, either. So, they just stayed mad at whatever was closest. The strangers wandering the streets of Lestallum and each other.

Aranea deflated with a harsh sigh, but didn’t apologize. Instead she finished her coffee and put her hands on the balcony railing, swinging a leg over the side.

“What the hell, maybe I will go get buzzed after all.”

Nyx sent a quizzical look between her and the balcony she’d just mounted.

“Express way,” she said with a smirk.

She pulled the other leg over and paused, perched on the edge with her heels hooked into the grooves of concrete that remained between them and open air. She looked out at nothing again, considering the murky light of the streetlamps.

“Take-out in the morning?” she asked. “That one vendor’s Galahdian, right? I’ll grab something from him before I get back.”

It was hard not to keep the surprise off his face, not that she lingered long enough to spare him a glance to see it. She swooped down to the streets and quickly got herself lost in its narrow alleys. That was about the closest thing to a thank you Nyx had ever gotten from her.

He wandered back over to Noctis once he’d lost sight of her, quietly sinking onto the edge of the bed to feel his feverish skin again. Noctis whimpered against the coolness of his hand. Nyx sighed. If Aranea really wanted to thank him, she’d come back in the morning with an extra bottle of whiskey for the road.


	3. the hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the oracle allies with the hunters of duscae.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/157870615232/guess-who-it-is-p-this-time-lets-go-for) for [ckyking.](http://ckyking.tumblr.com/)

Aranea may have been kinda sorta a little bit in love with Gladiolus. If only for the fact that he delighted in carrying on her personal tradition of scandalizing Nyx Ulric almost as much as she did. A little less subtle in his tactics than she tended to prefer, but effective, nevertheless. Aranea enjoyed the process of it all _almost_ more than she enjoyed the end result, but she couldn’t deny the blunt satisfaction awarded from Gladio’s more direct efforts.

The burly hunter had absconded with the Oracle to the most seedy-sounding tattoo parlor from here to Insomnia. Where he then proceeded to coerce or blackmail or perform some other disreputable act to influence Noctis’s volition… Or so went Nyx’s version of events.

In actuality, the Oracle had leaped at the chance to get to know their newest cohort in a more personal setting. It wasn’t because he had a thing for wild-looking buff guys with tattoos – whether they be as expansive as a hunter’s eagle, or as subtle as a Galahdian warrior’s marks. Denying it could only work if Noctis would learn to stop blushing every time Aranea teased him about it.

Whether he admitted it or not, Noctis was a little bit smitten with their broad-chested guide through Duscae. For different reasons than Aranea was. It helped that Gladiolus was as unsubtle as a Magitek engine over a shopping mall about the way he flirted with the Oracle. The first time he’d dragged his gaze over Noctis, head to toe, slowly and deliberately, right in front of Nyx, Aranea knew the man had her heart. Because the look on her prickly partner’s face in response, seething with unrequited despair, should have been framed and put on display in a museum.

Gladiolus wasn’t oblivious to him, either. His sultry looks were intended as much to fluster the Oracle as they were to get a rise out of Nyx. The first sling of his giant arm over Noctis’s shoulders had been a test for the both of them: to see how receptive Noctis might be to the contact, and to see how much steam he could get to come out of Nyx’s ears. Aranea did love a man who could multi-task.

The trip to the tattoo parlor was the finale of a very withdrawn, very beautiful soap opera. Aranea got a little misty-eyed, seeing it all come to such a glorious close. And for how proud she was of Noctis for being so bold as to initiate it.

“Just the two of you, huh?” she’d intoned when he had informed her of his travel plans for the day. “I’m sure you don’t need me to ask, but I’m contractually obligated to do so anyway. Sure you don’t want your security detail accompanying you?”

“I can take care of myself for a few hours. Not that I’m expecting much trouble. Consider this as a day off. I think you’ve accumulated more than enough vacation time to have earned it.”

“Indeed I have,” Aranea agreed, kicking her feet up on the rickety table inside the hunter outpost. “Don’t know if I can convince Nyxie to treat himself to the same though.”

“We’ll be back before he even knows we’re gone.”

“You’re going to murder that man, you know. Hope you know how to live with a guilty conscience.”

Noctis snorted in laughter and departed with a little wink that made Aranea’s heart swell because, aw, her boy was all grown up. Gods, she hoped he got something to match that devious smirk of his, because it was going to drive Nyx insane. Maybe Noctis could even turn it all back on Gladiolus and get _him_ to blush for once.

When Nyx returned from his expedition with the other hunters to find that Aranea had allowed the Oracle to go off with “that domestic anarchist waiting to happen,” the earful she got for it was worth the look on his face when Noctis returned. On the back of Gladio’s motorcycle. With his arms encircled comfortably around the bare, glossy abs of the driver. Aranea could have pitied Nyx if she’d been born a more merciful person. But the clench of his teeth and redness of his face was too beautiful not to snicker at.

“Were you _hurt_?” Nyx asked, his gaze snapping immediately to the thin bandage across the back of Noctis’s neck.

“I guess it stung a little bit, but nah. Not really,” Noctis said, as casually as if he’d just gone out for groceries.

“What did you do?”

The question was directed at Noctis, but Nyx was glaring pointedly at Gladiolus. The hunter merely grinned, staring straight back at the Knight, and gave a light smack to Noctis’s ass as he passed by. As much for his own benefit as for Nyx’s barely subdued outrage.

“Guess you’ll have to wait and see when it heals,” Gladio told him.

He nodded to Aranea as he went and she could have saluted him for how honored she felt to bear witness to his wonderful work. If he wasn’t the perfect catalyst she’d been waiting for to throw those two idiots together, she didn’t know what was. Noctis rubbed sheepishly just below the bandage, sneaking subtle glances towards Gladio’s back as he retreated. Nyx was burning hotter than the Rock of Ravatogh. Aranea was surprised Gladio didn’t burst into flames beneath his glare.

Nyx simmered down just enough to look at Noctis without scalding him. _Gods_ , did he have it bad, Aranea thought, snorting to herself from her view. Nyx instantly shoved his hands in his pockets, glancing between Noctis and the dirt beneath his boots, failing miserably at trying to conceal his jealousy.

“Fun date?” he grumbled.

“Nice to see the sights, yeah,” Noctis replied, his expression softening with fondness – and a little bit of pity – for the knots he’d wound up within his Knight. “Was a nice place. I didn’t think there’d be a tattoo parlor this far out of any cities.”

Nyx jerked his chin towards the covered area. “What’d you get?”

Noctis smirked, slow and secretive. “Like he said. You’ll have to wait and see.”

He kept them all guessing well after he peeled the bandage off a few hours later. It ended up being three small symbols that nobody could decipher; a series of strange polygons, drawn in thin lines so as to look like scripture on the Oracle’s skin. Which is where Aranea’s guess stemmed from when she asked him about them once they were alone.

“That’s from the Astrals’ alphabet, isn’t it?”

He blinked, bemused, before his eyes brightened with a smile, pleased that of all the people around him, the one that pretended she cared the least proved just how much she paid attention with this little observation. She quickly covered up how the delight in his eyes made her feel by dipping her head and fixing him with a demanding stare.

“What’s it say?”

Noctis lightly darted his fingers over the healing skin, his eyes flitting briefly across the outpost to where Nyx and Gladio were bickering over a roadmap in the evening gloom.

“It says Nyx.”


	4. prayers for the heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nyx is injured out in the wilds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/160214287887/its-just-a-cut-really-nyxnoct-happy) for various requests from [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/159638211212/five-word-prompts)

“It’s just a cut, really.”

Later (much, _much_ later) they would all laugh over how, not half a second after that statement, Nyx careened, face-first, right into Gladio’s bare abs, and passed out.

Noctis might have chuckled about it once they re-told the story, but it certainly wasn’t funny in the moment.

Panic _paralyzed_ him to the spot. A fraction of stillness before he bolted to Gladio’s side, hands reaching out and instantly pooling with white magic. The instinct came as automatically as holding his breath underwater, the Oracle’s body reacting to the danger by filling it with whatever it needed to survive. He wasn’t submerged in saltwater when Nyx fell, but Noctis might as well have been drowning. Magic rushed to his fingertips like air to his lungs. So it felt like Gladiolus was wrapping his arms around his throat and squeezing until he choked when he raised a hand to stop him.

“Don’t. You pushed yourself too hard out there already. Trying to heal this will put you over the edge.”

Noctis glared down at the arm barring his way like he was going to cut it off. He just barely caught the stern line of Gladio’s glare hooking into his skull before he could maim the intricate ink along the man’s arm. As if conjured by the hunter’s stare alone, dizziness rolled through Noctis, mocking and cruel, forcing his hands down to his sides.

He stared at Nyx’s prone body, slumped against Gladio’s chest, and he felt like it was his own blood draining from the gash in Nyx’s leg. His vision closed on that jagged slash, on Nyx’s closed eyes, on the unnatural limpness of his body as Gladio hefted one of his arms over his shoulders. It felt like he was listening to Gladio from underwater for a moment before the hunter’s shout popped in his ears.

“You do have to do _something_ , Noct. Help me with him,” he chided, laughing in an effort to lift his spirits while they lifted Nyx.

But Noctis couldn’t laugh. Not under how _heavy_ Nyx’s arm felt across his shoulders.

They picked their way across the corpse-strewn earth, the remains of feral beasts with long claws and great maws felled beneath the trees. It hadn’t been an uneven match. They hadn’t been creatures of particularly out-standing strength, but where they had lacked brute-force they had succeeded in speed. It had taken a great deal of stamina to keep up with them. Too much, even for Noct’s barrier magic to hold them off enough for Gladio and Nyx to leap back in and out of safety.

It was his own fault that Nyx was hurt. It was always his fault Nyx was getting hurt.

Gladio had been right. He’d gone too far. Noctis had been trying to be everything at once. Maintaining protection for Gladio, and funneling power to Nyx, and switching between them, while pooling white magic to any wounds sustained; all the while catapulting himself into the fray, spearing beasts with his trident and racing from one enemy to the next.

It had been too much. He’d put too much power into the shields for his friends and left too little for his own. One of the monsters had launched itself at him before he could recover from the last blow he’d deflected. He’d felt the draw from Nyx in the bond between them before he felt his Knight’s shoulder in his back, shoving him clear to take the brunt of the blow himself. Noctis felt the pain rush through Nyx in a pale red flare between their bond, stinging in the ink on his skin that marked Nyx as his.

He hadn’t seen the severity of the wound until the fighting was done. Nyx had spirited back into the fighting before Noctis could turn around to heal him. But he felt his pain in a constant throb all throughout the fight.

Noctis almost missed the feeling now. The instant Nyx’s eyes had closed the pulse of pain dulled down to a vacant, stagnant ache. Noctis could barely feel it. He supposed he should be grateful because if he couldn’t feel it, then neither could Nyx. But perhaps he was more selfish than he tried not to be. Because he wanted to feel _anything_ that would remind him Nyx was alive.

Gladio found them a clear space to camp. His movements were a blur in Noctis’s peripheral as he tended to Nyx. He shuffled to hold him upright while Gladio hastily fished through their supplies for a sleeping bag to set Nyx down on. Noctis failed to suppress the shudder that passed through him as he felt how cool Nyx’s body was against him. He had always run so hot, had always burned like a campfire for Noctis to curl up beside. The coldness of his skin was so _wrong_.

Gladio worked fast. Faster than Noctis could keep up with him while staving off the waves of nauseous dizziness that followed over-extending himself. The hunter spread Nyx over the sleeping bag and drew a myriad of whatever salves or potions he had on hand over the wound. It was enough to halt the blood-flow, tighten the flesh a little, but not knit it together completely. Gladio grunted, dissatisfied, before tearing through their supplies for bandages.

They were quiet while Gladiolus wrapped the wound, big, calloused hands slow, but deft. As if bandaging wounds was merely muscle memory to him. Noctis stared at Nyx, feeling useless as he knelt beside him. He stared at his ashen skin, the film of cold sweat along his forehead, and the slight part of his split lips to draw in a whisper of wheezing air.

“Will he…” Noctis’s voice dried up before he could finish asking.

“He’ll survive long enough for you to finish fixing him up in the morning. Or whenever it is that an Oracle’s done recharging.”

“I can do it now.”

“ _No_ , Noct. You’re exhausted, and you won’t be of any use to him if you pass out, too.”

Noctis swallowed down hard on a tumor of frustration. Gladio’s rough features softened, a hand coming up to rest on his shoulder in sympathy.

“It’s going to be fine,” he said, voice firm and gentle. “The way you tell it, this idiot’s survived way worse, right?”

Noctis glanced back at Nyx. Remembered the ruined, rag of a thing he’d found in Galahd a decade ago, stuffed in the corner of a scourge-ridden hovel, resigned to death. Recognized now the spite to live in the tension of his jaw and the strain of his breaths, fighting even while motionless. Noctis forced on a smile for Gladio. His friend patted his shoulder and rose to his feet.

“You alright here for a minute? There’s a stream just down the hill. I’ll get us some water. _Don’t_ do anything selfless while I’m gone.”

Noctis didn’t promise that he wouldn’t, but he held Gladio’s gaze long enough that the hunter was forced to resign himself to a sigh and an amused shake of his head before marching off to his task.

Dusk had fallen, and the wild was coming alive with the sounds of the night. Plains stretched out to his left, burnt yellow in the fallen sun behind distant cliffs. The woods clotted on his right, deep green and secret, beckoning Gladio’s shadow beneath the evergreen boughs. And beneath him was stone, flat and disused. A haven once, Noctis was sure of it. He could feel his own magic in disparate speckles between faded lines carved in the rock-face.

The plains were clear, the woods were close and comforting; the old runes, barely sputtering blue under nightfall, were familiar. Yet somehow, none of that made Noctis feel safe.

Nyx’s face shifted. Even in sleep, he sought out Noctis’s fear to banish it from the Oracle forever. A small, ragged laugh trickled from him at that, always endeared and infuriated by the man’s persistent need to protect him above himself. It was only flattering in theory though. Because in reality that noble stubbornness was borderline suicidal. And if he lost Nyx because of it… If he didn’t protect _Nyx_ , out of all the people in the world he was tasked to protect…

“You’re gonna be fine,” Noctis whispered, because maybe saying it out loud would make it more convincing than it sounded inside his head. “He says you’re gonna be fine, and I know that you will be, too… Later. When you’re awake. And you’re up. And you’re fine.”

Nyx _fell_. One moment he’d been standing, broad and proud and strong and a sentinel against all the dangers that had ever threatened Noctis. And in the next moment, he was on his knees. And every last terror in all of the world came rushing into him without his knight standing to keep them away.

Selfish. _Stupid._ To expect that the one man he admired for protecting him, had to protect himself if he was to ever protect Noctis.

Nyx made a sound, garbled in the back of his throat. And Noctis’s heart stopped until his Knight’s head rolled towards him. Noctis counted his own heartbeat, waiting for those eyes to open, like silver beacons in a fog for him to sail through to. But they didn’t open. And Noctis was terrified to lower his ear to Nyx’s chest to search for another heartbeat that might match his own. But he pushed himself forward, laid his head against the dusty fabric of Nyx’s coat, and waited.

A lazy little bump. And after a pause that was just as teasing as Nyx’s smile could be, another bump. Noctis let out all his breath and his own heart raced to catch up to the rhythm.

“You’re going to be fine,” Noctis reassured himself again.

He folded himself along Nyx’s side, pressing his face over his heartbeat, and he whispered prayers in the Astral’s tongue that he implored for them to hear. Just this one. If they heard no others.

“ _Keep this heart beating through the night, lest mine should stop in the morning.”_


End file.
